Sun

An Intel sign is displayed in front of the computer chip maker’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California. Intel on Thursday showed off a wireless electric power system that analysts say could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets. Photograph by : AFP/Getty Images/File/Justin Sullivan

Intel on Thursday showed off a wireless electric power system that analysts say could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets.

Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Energy Resonant Link as he spoke at the California firm’s annual developers forum in San Francisco.

Electricity was sent wirelessly to a lamp on stage, lighting a 60 watt bulb that uses more power than a typical laptop computer.

Most importantly, the electricity was transmitted without zapping anything or anyone that got between the sending and receiving units.

“The trick with wireless power is not can you do it; it’s can you do it safely and efficiently,” Intel researcher Josh Smith said in an online video explaining the breakthrough.

“It turns out the human body is not affected by magnetic fields; it is affected by electric fields. So what we are doing is transmitting energy using the magnetic field not the electric field.”

Examples of potential applications include airports, offices or other buildings that could be rigged to supply power to laptops, mobile telephones or other devices toted into them.

The technology could also be built into plugged in computer components, such as monitors, to enable them to broadcast power to devices left on desks or carried into rooms, according to Smith.

“Initially it eliminates chargers and eventually it eliminates batteries all together,” analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group said of Intel’s wireless power system.

“That is potentially a world changing event. This is the closest we’ve had to something being commercially available in this class.”

Previous wireless power systems consisted basically of firing lightning bolts from sending to receiving units.

Smith says Intel’s wireless power system is still in an early stage of development and much research remains before it can be brought to market.

Rattner spoke of technological transformations he expects by the year 2050.

“You’d like to cut the last cord,” Smith said.

“It’s great that we have wireless email and wireless internet and stuff like that but at the end of the day it would be nice to have wireless recharge as well.”

© AFP 2008

Bold will be in Rogers stores next week

Helen Morris
Sun

The latest BlackBerry from Research In Motion is set to hit the Canadian market today. But the new Bold may not attract the same scores of eager buyers who lined up around the block to snap up Apple’s iPhone 3G in July.

“There’s a huge difference in the sense that there’s not a crowd of geeks who follow the BlackBerry,” said Eamon Hoey, who looks at the telecommunications industry for management consultant Hoey Associates. “The BB does not have the following in the marketplace — the religious following, I might add — that Apple has that tends to buoy up the market.”

Rogers Wireless will be offering packages for the BlackBerry Bold online today and in their stores by the beginning of next week.

Odette Coleman at Rogers Wireless said that it is the company’s standard practice not to reveal pricing before a launch, but Jim Balsillie, the co-chief executive of Waterloo, Ont.-based Research in Motion, told Reuters in May the handset will cost between $300 and $400.

But as with the iPhone, prices can drop.

“The pricing will change. … They’ll work their way down to something that is going to be more reasonable,” said Marc Perrella, vice-president of the technology group at IDC Canada. “The timing is pretty good; they’re in the back-to-school time period. And it’s a lead up to the Christmas shopping season.”

Research In Motion said on their website the Bold will let users “do more — do it faster.”

“It takes advantage of Rogers‘ investment in its high-speed 3G network, the HSDPA,” said Perrella. “The higher speed allows for a richer customer experience.”

Perrella thinks the many features in a single device will appeal to business and consumers.

“They’re being true to their established executive in the enterprise … but [also] the younger, hipper worker because that memory and capability also translates into handling social networking or YouTube Web-based streaming,” said Perrella. “You can now manipulate and edit items from Microsoft. … It is a dual-mode phone, so it has the 3G plus the Wi-Fi capability. … It also has GPS.”

Following a 12-hour test drive of the new multimedia device, Citi Investment Research analyst Jim Suva told clients in a note that the BlackBerry Bold is a “strong product,” but that the device is not revolutionary.

Suva wrote that the browser on the Bold is a “big improvement” on the older Curve and Pearl BlackBerrys. RIM says “colour and clarity come to life,” with the new device and Suva — testing the device by watching the movie Talladega Nights — said the display is noticeably better.

But Hoey remains skeptical.

“In general, the larger corporations who are the big users of these devices … tend not to buy the latest and greatest,” said Hoey. “Because they are price-sensitive, typically they buy the almost-discontinued models or near-to-be discontinued models. They tend to go on low-price BB models.”

Suva did report some 3G signal dropping on streets with highrise buildings, and on the 34th floor of his office.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Your computer should be scanning every hour for security updates, patches

Darcy Keith
Sun

Marc Fossi is a security response manager for Symantec. Greg Fulmes, Canwest News Service

E-mail viruses are so yesterday.

These days, it’s your browser that has online criminals salivating.

Network worms and viruses spread by mass e-mails are unlikely to ever become extinct, but they are no longer the primary weapon used by the bad guys of the virtual world to steal your identity or life’s savings.

As the world catches on to the dangers of opening unknown e-mail attachments and better spam filters are created, the focus of attacks is turning to the Web itself.

“Attackers now are taking advantage of security flaws in the browsers that may exist, and using those to attack the user,” explains Marc Fossi, manager of development security response for Symantec Security in Calgary. “They may compromise a website, maybe a legitimate site, so that when people normally go there, they are attacked by modifications that the attacker has made to that site.” That might mean releasing a Trojan Horse virus or some other malicious code onto your computer.

These dubious deeds often are orchestrated through phishing techniques that mimic an actual site, such as one for an online bank. “They’ve gotten so professional they can make it look almost identical to your actual bank’s website,” says Fossi. “So unless you’re checking for certificates and things like that, it’s tough to tell.”

According to Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for the security firm Sophos in Oxford, England, there are 15,000 new web pages every day that are hosting malicious code. That’s one every five seconds.

It’s not easy for Web users to navigate around the infected sites. In the past, avoiding pornographic or casino websites would likely steer a surfer away from the problem. But these days, perfectly legitimate sites — including those run by government and major retailers and electronics suppliers — could contain harmful embedded computer code.

“This is a real worry because we can’t give simple instructions to people to avoid these problems. There’s nothing normally for the user to see because infection is silent,” says Cluley. “The best advice we give is make sure your browser is hardened and patched, and really keep your antivirus up to date.”

And that means your antivirus software shouldn’t be searching for updates just once a week or even each day. Your computer should automatically be on the lookout for new downloads every hour, Cluley suggests. Attackers, he warns, are becoming highly sophisticated and are navigating around security software roadblocks at lightning speed.

There’s a vast global underground economy ready to snap up information stolen from computer users. These professional criminals will hire computer coders to hijack your credit, banking or identity information, and then they will sell it online in a manner akin to a Wall Street trading room floor.

“It’s gotten so involved now that you are seeing microeconomics coming into play. There’s supply and demand, and pricing is based on that,” says Fossi.

That means pricing for a certain type of stolen information is based on how much of it is already available. “You’re even seeing bulk pricing, just on credit card numbers. You can buy 100 cards for 40 cents each, but if you buy 200 cards, you can get them for 20 cents each. For bank accounts, those with a higher balance will sell for more than one with a lower balance,” he says.

Social networking sites, such as Facebook and Myspace, are particularly vulnerable to phishing, because users generally trust them, notes Fossi. An attacker often logs onto such a site and posts a link to a malicious website or supposed video, giving them the ability to quickly spread malicious code and spam through a victim’s social network.

“The essential problem is personal computers aren’t really personal anymore. You think because it’s on your desk it’s just between you and this lump of grey plastic in front of you. When in fact, you’re sharing it with potentially millions of people online,” says Cluley.

Cluley says another increasingly used tactic is what’s known as “scareware.” This is a deceptive message that pops up while one is browsing the Internet, stating that your computer is infected with a virus.

“These bogus warnings are trying to get you to buy a bogus security product, which you would purchase with your credit card,” says Cluley.

After running the software download, it would claim to have cleaned up your hard drive. “But of course, you didn’t have to spend any money in the first place, because you weren’t infected.

“My general advice is, don’t believe everything you’ve seen on the Internet. There are lots of bad guys out there that will try to con you.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Oh, for the ring of common sense

Steve Makris
Province

The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic easily fits in a pencil case or backpack pocket.

The smaller Palm Centro has a quick ring/vibrate button. –CANWEST NEWS SERVICE

The use of the most popular teen gadget, the cellphone, is a contentious issue in many schools. It is the subject of privacy concerns among students and teachers, and often disrupts classes when it is used by students without regard for the people trying to concentrate on work nearby.

One problem, educators say, is in equipping adolescents with a veritable Internet broadcasting studio. There have been embarrassing incidents of classroom encounters and activities being posted on the Net. But even text messaging or silent cyber-cruising in class can be disruptive.

Used responsibly, cellphones are a boon to parents and students alike — to stay in touch, share files, use as a calculator and calendar, homework reminder, voice recorder, camera and — outside classroom hours — as an entertainment device filled with music and video.

– The Palm Centro from Rogers Wireless, for instance, is a do-it-all full keyboard multi-function phone device for younger users.

Google Maps are lifesavers when making your way to a new school and an easy-to-flick switch on the top of the Centro quickly flips from ring tone to vibrate. It keeps all conversations in messaging-like display, sends text, pictures, audio and video clips, keeps all your personal e-mails and uses Pocket Tunes for managing audio, video and audio books.

You can create, edit and view Word and Excel compatible documents, as well as view PowerPoint and PDF files.

It can also be used as a modem for connecting a laptop to the Internet via Bluetooth and comes with calculator, calendar, camcorder, camera, contacts, memos, messaging, Quick Tour, tasks, voice dial, voice memo, web and world clock.

– The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic from Rogers Wireless easily fits in a pencil case or backpack pocket and includes an alarm clock, to-do list, notes, calculator, stopwatch and countdown timer.

The calendar allows up to 3,000 entries, with week-view functionality including homework reminder, memo, call, and birthday notes. It can synchronize with MS Outlook contacts, calendar, notes and comes with Nokia PC Suite connectivity via USB and Bluetooth. It’s also a music phone.

– Samsung’s Instinct from Bell has a full QWERTY touch-screen keyboard and includes a stylus option. It supports expandable memory of up to eight gigabytes with a Micro SD Card, over-the-air access to notes, tasks and to-do lists, easy file sharing with Bluetooth beaming, GPS navigation capabilities and a two-megapixel camera/camcorder.

– Parents will like GPS-based services from Telus Kid Find and Bell‘s Seek and Find service. It shows where your child (and their phone) is at any time on a home Internet-connected computer or a cellphone screen. Parents can even see their child’s actual path home. It lets you know when your child arrives at certain destinations, such as being at school on time. Both services work with a wide variety of “parent” and “child” phones for $5 a month.

– The cordless ICD-UX70S Digital Voice Recorder ($109.99) has a built-in one-gigabyte Flash memory that lets users record up to 290 hours of lectures, personal notes and more. You can even play back your favourite MP3 audio files and listen on the included stereo headphones. It features five recording modes and works with Windows and Mac computers.

© The Vancouver Province 2008